


Learn How To Shine (봄)

by replaydebut



Series: 우리 영원한 계절 (Our Eternal Season) [1]
Category: K-pop, SHINee
Genre: Band Fic, Crushes, First Time, Growing Up, Hand Jobs, Hurt/Comfort, Inspired by Music, Kissing, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-01
Updated: 2020-04-01
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:33:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23429284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/replaydebut/pseuds/replaydebut
Summary: "I need to learn how to shine like she does / If I look at her, I’ll be blinded."Kibum was unlike anyone Jonghyun had ever met. He wasn’t as quiet and timid as his friends from high school, and much more direct and honest than the other trainees. He laughed so loudly that it made Taemin flinch, and his eyes could cut across the room like a sharp knife, finding their victim in a crowd.
Relationships: Kim Jonghyun/Kim Kibum | Key
Series: 우리 영원한 계절 (Our Eternal Season) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1685407
Comments: 10
Kudos: 49





	Learn How To Shine (봄)

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone, I know it's been so long since I've posted ;; I've had such a busy and stressful school semester..so busy that I wasn't even able to participate in Winter of SHINee, the fest i helped organize lol! It was so disappointing >< but now that my school will be online for the rest of the semester, I'm hoping to have more free time to write bc I miss it so much ;;
> 
> Anyway, this is the first fic I'll be posting for the Jjong's Month challenge on tumblr! I plan to post 5 fics in total: one for each week of April and one with each Jonghyun pairing (the last one being an ot5 fic~) The fics will all be inspired by various songs written by Jonghyun, and representative of different seasons ^^ This first fic is inspired by Juliette, and representative of Spring <3 
> 
> I'm really excited about this little project and I hope everyone will enjoy the fics <3

  
Kibum was unlike anyone Jonghyun had ever met. He wasn’t as quiet and timid as his friends from high school, and much more direct and honest than the other trainees. He laughed so loudly that it made Taemin flinch, and his eyes could cut across the room like a sharp knife, finding their victim in a crowd. 

Even before they found out they’d be in the same group, they practiced together until the sky was pitch black. When it hit 4 in the morning with the blue background of the practice room turning a sickly green color behind Jonghyun’s exhausted eyes, Kibum bought snacks each night. They’d rush down the street where Kibum would buy energy drinks and triangle kimbap from the nearest convenience store. He always paid with his own money, clean bills curled up in a neat fold in his small, pink coin pouch. 

Even when Jonghyun timidly offered to pay with his meager pocket change, Kibum refused and shot him a severe, disapproving look. Their ages never seemed to play into any interaction they had. Kibum did what he liked exactly when he wanted to, as if he had already planned out his entire life by the time he’d learned how to write—following an internal itinerary down to the letter.

When Jonghyun found him huddled in the dorm closet on the night of their debut stage, just an hour after they’d left the broadcast building, the shock hit him straight in his heart like lightning.

Kibum was shaking as he held his phone to his ear, tears streaming down his face while he mumbled to his grandma on the other line. Jonghyun hadn’t meant to intrude, he’d just been looking for a hat he thought he left on the top shelf. Kibum was sinking into a pink pillow on the floor, crumpled up with knees drawn to his chest. 

His eyes were softer than Jonghyun had ever seen, warm and watery from his overwhelmed tears. Jonghyun knew the feeling, but it made his whole body freeze up to see Kibum falling apart gently like wilted flower petals. 

He closed the door quickly and walked back to the living room, where it was empty except for the hum of the television turned to a program he didn’t recognize. His eyes went fuzzy at the edges as he stared at the screen.

Half an hour later, Kibum stood in the hallway in clean pajamas. His bare feet padded on the wooden floor as he made his way to the couch, sinking down next to Jonghyun as if it was the first time he’d seen him all night. After a moment, his head found the space between Jonghyun’s shoulder and jaw. 

They stared at the TV together as Kibum’s fingers slipped easily into his own. 

“How do you do it?” Kibum asked softly. 

Jonghyun squeezed his hand. “Do what?”

“Let people see you cry.” 

Jonghyun paused. He recalled that Kibum was the first of their team to have seen him cry, too; during training, when his voice had cracked on the same note over and over. He’d desperately kept at it until it hurt, and the tears had welled up and overflowed like a waterfall. He hadn’t been very embarrassed about the crying then, only the failure.

“I’m too sensitive,” Jonghyun said, still shaken up after seeing Kibum break down. “Don’t worry if it isn’t easy for you to cry, maybe it’s better that way.” 

Kibum was silent for a moment, and then his lips brushed the bare skin of Jonghyun’s collarbone at the edge of his shirt. 

“I think it’s better to be honest about how you feel.” 

Jonghyun looked down, and Kibum’s eyes were that warm dark pool of heavy emotion again. His eyelashes were long and pretty. Jonghyun’s throat felt tight.

“We should go to bed, it’s nearly three.” 

Kibum nodded, but as Jonghyun watched him get up to head to the bedroom, he could practically hear each word left unsaid—as loud as an explosion.  


  
\---

  


Kibum’s hair curled gently at the nape of his neck. Jonghyun noticed it from across the breakfast table, and even Taemin’s greedy grab for another piece of gyeran-mari refused to distract him from the sight. 

Kibum caught him staring, and his eyes were back to their trademark sharpness. In a recent interview, Kibum had noted that their fans thought he resembled a cat. Jonghyun could see it only slightly, in the knowing curve of his smile. 

Jonghyun tried not to blush as he looked down, into the reflective silver of his spoon that showed his own eyes—much less guarded than Kibum’s, and infinitely revealing of every little thing. 

In the practice room, Jonghyun tried to sweat it all out, but his arms kept bumping Kibum’s and he tripped over his own feet too many times. Jinki looked concerned, in that confused and hesitant way that he always did. It was like he was never sure what he should do besides plaster that sympathetic look on his face. Jonghyun couldn’t blame him—he’d been thrust into his role just like they all had—but at the same time the sight infuriated him.

He angrily stomped away to pick up his water bottle, and he could feel Kibum’s eyes on him. 

“What’s wrong?” Kibum demanded, because of course Jinki wasn’t going to. Jonghyun scowled.

“Nothing. Just distracted,” Jonghyun managed to grit out from between his teeth. He huffed as he turned back around, but he knew his face was already red. He hated being embarrassed. 

“Well don’t be,” Kibum said, voice colder than it had been before. He turned around and started up the song again. Jinki’s mouth was hanging slightly open, Minho just looked at the floor, and Taemin blinked owlishly. 

Jonghyun took another swig of water, and assumed his place in the choreography formation. He pushed his body until his legs shook from fatigue, and his head spun from lack of food. Stars behind his eyes circled in an endless loop, but at least his feet knew exactly where to go at each millisecond of the new song.

He barely caught himself as he sank to the floor. Taemin had to go to bed for school the next day, and he just barely heard Jinki mention something about ordering delivery. Jonghyun tried to concentrate on just the feeling of the smooth wood of the floor, slightly dusty from the soles of their shoes. 

He felt more than heard Kibum come up in front of him, and even with his eyes closed he knew exactly how he was standing—with arms folded in front of his chest and his feet planted firm.

“You really didn’t have to put on such a show,” Kibum said flatly. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jonghyun replied, knowing he was pouting and not being able to stop.

Kibum laughed in disbelief, and Jonghyun could picture that too—how his head tilted back and his mouth opened wide enough to let it all out like a song.

“You’re so dramatic. And stubborn too, for that matter,” Kibum explained, but Jonghyun felt him sink down to the floor next to him.

“Looks who’s talking,” Jonghyun grumbled, but he felt gentle fingers scratching along his scalp. He couldn’t help the soft hum that slipped out, and the way his body arched back to touch Kibum’s crossed shins.

“You think we all don’t feel the same way you do?” Kibum continued, punctuating the words with soothing, rhythmic brushes through Jonghyun’s sweaty hair. His eyelashes fluttered.

“You think we don’t all feel the same pressure?”

Jonghyun blushed. Truthfully, he’d never felt like anyone understood the depth of his feelings. Ever since he was a kid, weak and prone to fits of rage and angry tears, he’d felt somehow removed from others, out on his own trying to understand the world in a way no one else seemed to.

“I don’t know what I think,” he decided on saying. Kibum tugged on a handful of his hair, not enough to hurt, but just enough to show his stern type of affection. Jonghyun reached back to bat his hand away in protest anyway.

“Better get up. The others ordered chicken and jajangmyeon.”

“I’m not hungry.”

Kibum paused before standing up. Jonghyun fidgeted. He’d managed not to turn around to face Kibum for their whole conversation, but now he felt cold fingers along his cheek. Kibum tugged lightly on his jaw until they were facing each other. 

“Don’t lie. You’re bad at it.”

He let go as soon as Minho and Jinki returned with their dinner. Jonghyun slowly sat up on crossed legs, watching the slim form of Kibum’s back retreating, and the soft curve of his hair along his neck. Jonghyun’s stomach grumbled in defiance.  


  
\---

  


A half a year in the industry felt like a week, and Jonghyun watched the time pass by at dizzying, breakneck speed. Phone calls with his mother were too short and taken in stolen moments, hiding in the corner of their shared bedroom while everyone else was watching a movie. He wasn’t ready yet to be teased for being a mama’s boy, even though he knew it was true.

Kibum caught him one day, late at night when Jonghyun heard the TV blaring and used it as an opportunity to quietly shut the bedroom door and wrap a blanket around his shoulders as he dialed his mom’s number; something he knew by heart. His throat had already caught on a cry as soon as he heard her voice. 

He hadn’t called because of anything serious; he rarely ever did, but Jonghyun had always let himself cry for his own comfort. His mom was telling him about her day as his tears began to dry and he heard Kibum walk in. He had memorized the way his footsteps sounded by now; the soft scratch of his thin blue house shoes on the carpet. 

Kibum froze as Jonghyun looked up. He was on the floor next to his and Taemin’s bunk, knees to chest and hand cradling the phone. It struck Jonghyun how oddly reminiscent the moment was to the one months prior, where their roles were switched. That day was slowly becoming the most distant of memories.

Kibum stared blankly for a moment, and Jonghyun held his gaze. Suddenly, he wanted to put his phone away and pull Kibum towards him instead, so that their knees would touch as they sat crossed legged and kept staring until one of them blinked; until something gave out.

Once his mom finished talking, he quietly said goodbye and hung up. The sound of the TV in the living room was muted behind the door, and Kibum slid down to sit in front of Jonghyun, in exactly the way Jonghyun had pictured he would. 

“Everyone thinks you have a secret girlfriend,” Kibum started with a smirk, nodding towards the phone still sitting in Jonghyun’s hand. Jonghyun scoffed but stayed quiet, folding his legs into a cross-legged position too. Kibum scooted closer until their knees touched. 

“I told them they’re full of shit because you’d tell me if you actually did,” he continued, pulling at the hem of Jonghyun’s sweatpant leg. He toyed with it for a moment as his eyebrows furrowed together. “You would tell me, right?”

Jonghyun laughed. It was awkward and too loud, but it was the only way he could possibly respond. His shoulders shook with it as Kibum looked confused. 

“I don’t have a girlfriend. It was my mom. I just really talk to her that much,” Jonghyun explained, feeling his cheeks get hot as he admitted it. Kibum’s eyes softened. 

“Ah, now you’re making me miss my mom,” Kibum replied, voice a little lighter, but still expectant, like he’d been searching for a different answer.

Jonghyun nudged Kibum’s foot with his own, and smiled playfully to shake the rest of the awkwardness. Kibum gave him a small grin, but his eyes were blank like the black of a school chalkboard. Jonghyun bit his lip.

“Yes, I would,” Jonghyun offered, thinking he’d finally found the answer Kibum was searching for. 

“Would what?” Kibum asked, stretching back to lean on his hands and kick one of his feet out. 

The side of his foot just barely nudged Jonghyun’s waist where his t-shirt had rode up, exposing a soft strip of skin. Jonghyun shivered.

“I’d tell you,” Jonghyun replied, fidgeting in an attempt to get his shirt to fall back down. His cheeks were still all warm, and he hated how easily flustered he could be. “I’d tell you...you know, if I had a girlfriend. But, honestly I’m not interested in that stuff anyway.”

He trailed off as he looked down, as he followed the line of Kibum’s leg and felt his foot still gently nudging against his bare skin. Jonghyun took a shaky breath. “I-if you know what I mean.”

Kibum colored pink and looked down too. His foot paused at Jonghyun’s side, and they shared a moment of silence, drawn out by the unexpected feeling of anticipation suddenly hanging in the air. When Kibum looked back up, Jonghyun did too, and they smiled shyly at each other from underneath their long bangs. 

Rather than Jonghyun consciously moving first, or Kibum making one of his usual determined and self-assured decisions, they seemed to fall into one another in slow motion. Jonghyun felt like he was watching his own body as it shifted forward, as his feet pushed back underneath his butt and his hands planted themselves on the floor on either side of Kibum’s hips. Kibum’s breath ghosted his cheek, and his hair tickled his forehead. 

“I do know what you mean,” Kibum whispered. His eyes were bright and blazing again.

They were almost there. Jonghyun’s legs were straddling him, and the space between Kibum’s thighs slowly opened to accommodate him. He reached up a nervous hand, and it would’ve found its place on Kibum’s soft cheek, if not for the sound of the TV clicking off and the rush of three pairs of feet barreling down the hallway.

Their eyes grew wide together, and suddenly Jonghyun was back in his corner by the beds where he’d sat before—as if he’d never moved. Kibum gave him a fleeting look before he turned to the dresser to pretend to dig for a pair of pajamas. Taemin opened the door just as Jonghyun’s breathing slowed back to normal. 

After everyone had washed up, and the lights in the bedroom had dimmed, Jonghyun lay motionless as a board on top of his covers. He could feel Kibum’s eyes from the twin top bunk just across the way. When he turned on his side, he saw Kibum’s shadowed face in the dark, and the way his white hoodie outlined the curve of his jaw. It was funny how even their beds mirrored one another, separated only by the small space of Jinki’s bed on the floor. Jonghyun watched Kibum blink slowly.

They looked at each other until Kibum’s eyes slipped close in sleep. Jonghyun kept staring even after that, as his thoughts rolled around in his head and he replayed the image of Kibum’s delicately curved pink lips behind his eyelids. Everything about him had been intensified up close like that, where even the hairs of his eyebrows felt significant and noteworthy. 

Jonghyun laid in the dark and counted down the minutes, trying all he could to ignore the feelings fluttering in him—up from his stomach, through his heart, and going all the way to his head.  


  
\---

  


They hadn’t been alone together in the same room for weeks. Jonghyun couldn’t help but feel like it was partially on purpose, as if Kibum had been able to manipulate their schedules so that they were way too busy with promotions to confront what had almost happened.

He watched Kibum out of the corner of his eye in the practice room late in the day. It was coming up on dinnertime, but the relentless pursuit of perfect choreography took precedent. Jonghyun was struggling with one specific part of the dance, and Kibum moved through the steps with effortless precision.

When Minho finally whined that his stomach hurt from hunger, Jinki picked up the phone to order food. Jonghyun kept watching Kibum as he ran through the routine on his own, doing each step with half energy just for the muscle memory practice. Jonghyun took a deep breath. He could still feel the faint sensation of Kibum’s foot pressed against his waist, of the way he smelled up close—like fresh clean soap and rose hand lotion.

“I’m having trouble with this part,” Jonghyun offered sheepishly, blushing as he mimicked the dance move that he couldn’t quite master. 

Kibum shot him a look of vague disinterest. Jonghyun noticed a sheen of sweat lining his forehead, but to anyone else it would simply look like Kibum was glowing a little extra bright. Jonghyun’s hair was wet, and his own cheeks were flushed a blotchy red by comparison. 

“Here, you have to move your arms more fluidly. And your feet need to be in time with them too,” Kibum suggested. “Watch me.”

He did the dance accurately again, and Jonghyun tried to keep up. He growled under his breath when his legs looked a lot sloppier in the mirror than Kibum’s. Kibum raised an eyebrow at him, but a smile started to curl up the side of his face. 

“You’re not a bad dancer, you know,” he said, and then his hands were on Jonghyun’s shoulders, straightening them out and bending his left elbow in tighter to his chest. Jonghyun stuttered over his reply, sweaty skin suddenly even hotter under Kibum’s palm. 

“You just take a little longer to get the hang of it.”

“Easy for you to say,” Jonghyun mumbled, running through the series of moves again. “You do it perfectly.”

Kibum laughed softly, self-conscious like there was a secret hidden behind it. “Not ‘perfect’, that’s Taemin.”

Jonghyun glanced across the room to where Taemin was seated on the floor bent over a worksheet of math homework. His face was red and sweaty from dancing so hard, and his full bottom lip stuck out in intense concentration. In the grand scheme of things, all of them were young, but Taemin looked even younger like that—nothing but a kid doing double the work of others his age instead of at home having dinner with his parents. 

“He’s naturally a good dancer,” Kibum explained, watching Jonghyun with a careful eye as he continued running through the routine. “Just like you’re naturally a good singer.”

Jonghyun smiled in spite of himself, always swelling with pride and shyness when he received a compliment.

“And you’re saying you aren’t?” Jonghyun asked, taking a break to drink some water. 

Kibum pursed his lips in thought, and then nodded curtly. “I’m naturally okay at a lot of things, not great. It means I have to do even more to make sure I don’t fall behind.”

Jonghyun’s eyebrows drew together in confusion. “That’s not true at all,” he said sternly, almost angry that Kibum would talk about himself like that. 

Kibum just shook his head and smiled tight-lipped. “Don’t worry about it right now, just practice your footwork,” he said, dismissively like he’d already made up his mind about all of this; had been internalizing it from the very beginning.

Jonghyun let it drop because he didn’t want to start an argument when things between them since their almost-kiss were still so fragile. He went back to practicing until their food arrived, but his eyes kept drifting to Kibum between each step. 

When they all had succumbed to their exhaustion, the five of them sat in a circle and shared chicken, everyone huddled together under the same heavy weight of adolescent sweat and the expectations of the world. They laughed at a stupid joke Jinki made, and listened to Taemin complain about his homework while Minho teased him for it. For a moment, in the bottom of a brightly colored paper chicken box, and in the curve of their smiles, it felt like a growing flame of something big and beyond the quiet space of the practice room had fanned their hearts.  


  
\---

  


Jonghyun sat on the couch with his feet tucked up underneath him. It was the middle of the night, somewhere between midnight and two, and he had a tattered notebook open on his right thigh. He’d snuck out of the bedroom when he couldn’t sleep, his palms all itchy and his brain on overdrive. He was used to the feeling, and the only way he knew how to get anything out was to cry or to write about it. Sometimes it was a little bit of both.

The only lights were the blue glow of the idle television screen, and the blinking of the city outside the large windows. Jonghyun liked having the curtains drawn back so he could see into the bustling world below their small dorm. It made it easier to recognize the big picture of everything, even the possibilities tucked inside the silly lyrics he was scribbling down. 

The sound of weight pressed onto wood in the hallway dragged Jonghyun from his thoughts. He turned to see Kibum’s socked feet and a basket of wet clothes. He was in shorts and a tank top, and Jonghyun’s eyes fell to the exposed skin of his thin arms, soft and unscarred. Kibum looked unfazed when he noticed Jonghyun staring.

“Can’t sleep,” he said, walking over to the drying rack perched by the window. Jonghyun giggled.

“So you’re doing laundry?”

Kibum smiled sheepishly, but slid a pair of Taemin’s sweatpants over the top rung of the rack. “Taemin left a load of clothes in the washer, and well...I’m the dorm mom, right?”

Jonghyun snorted, and stood up to help, flattening out a brightly colored t-shirt. It was quiet for a moment, with just the sound of wet fabric falling into place on the wooden rack cutting through the silence that still stood so awkwardly between them. 

“What were you doing?” Kibum asked, his voice light like he was trying to bring things back to normal. Jonghyun would’ve appreciated it, if not for the nature of what he’d been writing. 

“Ah, nothing,” Jonghyun said too quickly. “Just. Maybe writing some lyrics, I don’t know.”

Kibum smiled warmly at that, and Jonghyun hadn’t seen that smile in weeks. “Can I see?”

Jonghyun bit his lip. He felt shy, but he also couldn’t deny how much he liked it when anyone stroked his ego, especially Kibum. He nodded, and walked over to the couch where he’d left his notebook.

Kibum’s eyebrows furrowed in concentration, and he mouthed along with the words as he read. 

_“The moonlight, as if it’ll spill, is definitely dark / Including the almost exploding torchlight.”_

_“Juliette, I’ll give you my soul / Juliette, please accept me / Juliette, sweetly, a little more sweeter / Whisper my serenade.”_

Jonghyun blushed and looked at his feet. He didn’t know what to say or how to explain it. The only thing was the words right there on the page that would have to speak for themselves.

“This is great,” Kibum said, quiet and a little dazed. Jonghyun held his breath. “Really, it’s amazing. You should show it to one of the producers.”

Jonghyun nearly choked and shook his head quickly. “Are you crazy? We haven’t even been a group for a year yet. There’s no way they’d listen to me.”

Kibum’s head snapped up from the paper in his hands, and his eyes were darker than the room; darker than the endless night outside. Jonghyun was so startled by their intensity that he almost physically stumbled backwards. 

“No, I’m not crazy. They’d be the crazy ones not to use your lyrics.”

Jonghyun swallowed. He didn’t know what to say, and that was really a first. He’d always been the chatterbox, ready with a quick comeback for just about anything, but Kibum had left him speechless. He doubted it would be the last time.

“Just go after what you want, hyung,” Kibum continued, voice dropping lower as he handed him the notebook back. “It’s the only thing we can do. And you deserve it.”

Kibum was about to walk back over to the laundry rack, to set everything back in place like it had been before in his neat and efficient way. Jonghyun’s hand shook as he reached up, but he kept going. His fingers curled around Kibum’s arm, and then they were tugging him closer, close enough that Jonghyun felt Kibum’s breath against his cheek again. It was already so familiar.

“Go after what I want, right?” Jonghyun whispered, letting the words fall around them like stars.

Kibum’s eyes widened, but he placed his hands on Jonghyun’s shoulders, warmth seeping straight through his t-shirt and into his skin. So slowly, like time had stopped in just the little bubble around them, their noses brushed. Jonghyun dropped the notebook on the couch behind him, and found Kibum’s other arm in the dark. 

He heard Kibum gasp before their lips touched. It wasn’t Jonghyun’s first kiss; that had been with a talkative, confident girl in his high school class behind the convenience store by his house. Then, it had been sloppy and hazy in the glaring heat of summer. 

Now, this kiss was soft and a little shaky. Jonghyun had gone into it thinking he knew where to go, but Kibum was more real and solid underneath his hands than he’d entirely expected. He pressed a little harder, feeling the plush give of Kibum’s lips. His fingers faltered where he squeezed Kibum’s skin, where his body didn’t know how to act. 

Kibum kissed him back—that was the one thing he could register. His hair tickled Jonghyun’s cheek and his fingers were finding their way up his neckline. The room which had been shrouded in the coolness of night, slowly began to heat up. Jonghyun gasped as he pulled away. 

Kibum looked so serious and single minded like he always did, and his hands had looped around Jonghyun’s neck easily. They were alone, with the only threat to their privacy fast asleep in the bedroom only a few meters away. 

Kibum surged forward, and the second kiss was like electricity all up Jonghyun’s arms. The back of his knees hit the couch, and the slow motion set in again as Kibum bracketed his thighs. They fell into each other, arms and legs struggling to find a natural place to sit as the rush of hormones and heat overtook any rational thought. Jonghyun breathed along Kibum’s collarbone as his fingers traced the smooth skin of his belly under his tank top. Kibum gasped, and his lips brushed the tip of Jonghyun’s ear.

Their eyes locked in the dark, with Kibum’s curiously vulnerable and soft. Jonghyun reached up to touch his cheek. They kissed again, this time with a bit more grace than the last two. Jonghyun let his mouth hover for a moment before he pressed in, before he caught the corner of Kibum’s bottom lip with his tongue. Kibum was timid too, fingers curling into the hair at the back of Jonghyun’s neck and face relaxing as they kept going. 

Jonghyun tried not to jolt in surprise when he felt the line of Kibum’s slowly hardening cock brush up against his own. He made a small muffled sound, and they pulled away from each other. Jonghyun was blushing, because of course he was. He nearly scrambled to cover his own crotch, feeling like somehow they were going too far. 

“It’s okay,” Kibum said, and his voice sounded too low and too loud for the tiny space they now shared. His fingers grasped Jonghyun’s wrist. “I—Do you want to?” he continued, eyebrows scrunched together in uncertainty.

Jonghyun swallowed, but nodded. He realized that this was something different than kissing a girl in the midday summer sun near your mother’s house. It was different from the sweet smile she had given him afterwards, and the way that they never went further than that; only drifting apart as they grew older. This was Kibum, and he wasn’t like anyone Jonghyun had met in high school.

“Yes.”

They unbuttoned each other’s pants with clumsy fingers, and Jonghyun shivered when he brushed against the neatly trimmed curls of hair just past the waistband of Kibum’s underwear. He’d never touched anyone but himself before, and he suddenly worried he wouldn’t do it right. 

Somehow, he knew Kibum would know exactly what to do. The heel of Kibum’s hand pressed down on Jonghyun’s dick, and he almost squealed as his hips kicked up to meet the gesture. Kibum smirked. 

“Should’ve known you’d be loud,” he said, fingers grasping him fully and starting to move up and down his length. Jonghyun groaned and closed his eyes, squirming around on the couch cushions as his face and chest began to bloom with heat.

Again, Jonghyun was left without a suitable retort for Kibum’s teasing. He scrambled to slip his own hand down further, finding the base of Kibum’s cock and squeezing. Kibum softly moaned with lips closed, concentrating on getting Jonghyun off. Jonghyun fumbled as he picked up speed. He felt like he didn’t know how to hold him right, but Kibum was shifting around and pressing forward into his touch enough that Jonghyun knew it must’ve felt good.

It was uncoordinated and barely enough to get going, but Jonghyun relished the taste of sweat on Kibum’s exposed collarbone, and the quick way he moved while still pressing his mouth to the skin behind Jonghyun’s ear. Their kisses grew more heated, and Jonghyun began to memorize the pattern of Kibum’s lips, the way they slid into place with Jonghyun’s so effortlessly. He panted into Kibum’s mouth as they kept going, as each touch lit him up from the inside out, spilling into each other’s hands at nearly the same time. 

Kibum moaned quietly into Jonghyun’s neck as he came, sticky with sweat and shaking from holding himself up. Jonghyun breathed heavy as they collapsed onto each other, as the energy around them began to settle. Kibum’s skin was so warm. 

They locked eyes, and Jonghyun had questions he didn’t even know how to form into words. Kibum was pliant in his arms, with a sleepy smile slowly cresting across his face. Jonghyun wanted another kiss, even if it was just one. He figured he would wait all night. 

“Guess I should’ve done some of our laundry too,” Kibum noted with a smirk. Jonghyun’s laughter bubbled out of him much too loudly, and Kibum’s frantic shush just made it all spill over even more helplessly.

Then they were falling into each other as they shared that laughter, filling both their mouths as Jonghyun took that one last kiss. He pressed firm and clutched to the small of Kibum’s back, and Kibum hummed in surprise as he deepened the movement. They kissed slowly until Jonghyun had to force himself to pull away. For some reason, even after all that had just happened, this thing between them still felt as fragile as glass. 

“Wanna sleep in my bed?” Kibum asked, voice pitched low again. Jonghyun nodded shyly with wide eyes.

“I’d like that.”

The rest of Taemin’s wet laundry would be left to sit for the next few hours, but it was the last thing on Jonghyun’s mind as he swiped up his notebook from the couch cushions and followed Kibum to the bedroom. Before slipping through the door, he looked back to see if the indention where they’d been seated would be noticable; if there was any physical evidence of the little moment that had just transpired. 

The couch revealed nothing, but Jonghyun knew that from now on, each time he laid eyes on it he would be reminded of how Kibum had trembled hot and desperate in his hand. 

Everyone was asleep just as they had been before, but the world had certainly shifted. Jonghyun walked unsteadily to the other side of the room and crawled up the ladder until he fell clumsily into Kibum’s side. It was much too small for two people, but so was the living room couch.

He pressed up against Kibum’s back with his notebook plastered to his chest. Kibum reached around to grab his hand and tug him forward until his palm was laying still on Kibum’s soft belly. Jonghyun smiled into his bare shoulder. 

“I think we’ll both be able to sleep well now,” he whispered. 

Kibum chuckled softly. “I think you’re right.”

The sun would be up in a few hours, but until then, Jonghyun would rest his eyes in the crook between Kibum’s shoulder and his ear, breathing him in until he could no longer fight the drowsiness that hung over his head.  


  
\---

  


Jonghyun woke up before everyone else to the sight of Kibum’s still sleeping face turned towards him. Patches of early morning sunlight peeked through the curtains, casting a humble glow across each of Kibum’s features. Jonghyun’s heart lurched. 

Quietly, he noted all of them in detail. Kibum’s eyebrows were dark and dramatic, and Jonghyun liked how one of them was slightly scarred; it was unique just like him. Kibum’s nose stretched out with an elegant flair, and rounded slightly at the tip. His eyes pointed out pretty and sharp at the ends, and his lips were dainty and pink—drawn together like a bow. 

As the sun traveled lazily over the corners of his face, Jonghyun decided that Kibum wasn’t like a cat at all. He was much more like a fox, mysterious and captivating, able to charm anyone who happened to drift into his circle, reeling them in as easy as breathing. Jonghyun slowly pulled his pencil from the silver spiral spine of his notebook, and opened one of the worn pages. 

_Please give me a chance / when you look at me with those eyes / I want to hold you in my arms / But to me you’re like a playful fox_

He blushed as he finished writing, and Kibum’s eyes fluttered open when Jonghyun’s pencil marked its last scratch. He wore that sleepy uninhibited smile again, and Jonghyun’s hand lingered in question at his arm. Kibum snuggled in closer.

“What’re you writing?” he mumbled, voice heavy with sleep. He wasn’t much of a morning person—Jonghyun had come to know that too.

“Not much,” Jonghyun said, closing the cover of the notebook and propping his chin up against Kibum’s shoulder. He could smell his morning breath. “Just something to show the company at our next meeting, that’s all.”

Kibum’s sleepy smile turned radiant, and Jonghyun wanted to curl up in it like it was a sunbeam. 

“And they’ll love it. Just like I do.”

Jonghyun grinned bashfully, and slipped his hand into Kibum’s. They squeezed at the same time, palms sharing a burst of heat. Jonghyun leaned in, still nervous in case what they’d had before had been saved only for the secrecy of night, and couldn’t be revived in the harsh truth of the morning sun. 

To his relief, Kibum flashed an honest grin and closed his eyes. Their lips were a mere breath away when a thud on the floor made Kibum jump back in surprise. Taemin groaned and rubbed at his eyes, slowly waking up after falling off his bed in his sleep. Jonghyun laughed in spite of himself, in spite of missing another chance at a kiss. 

Minho and Jinki began to wake up too, blinking sleepily as they walked over to see if Taemin was alright. Jonghyun and Kibum shared a knowing smile. Even if they wanted to do nothing but bask in the sunlight streaming in from the window and share body heat until that same sun disappeared from the sky, they could find that time later. There would always be a chance to steal away; to steal a kiss or two.

Jonghyun watched as Kibum climbed down and started nagging Taemin and Minho for waking him up. He watched Jinki fumble at the bedroom door and head into the kitchen to start breakfast. He watched Taemin carelessly try to flatten down his bedhead as he prepared his school uniform. 

Even if it wasn’t today, or tomorrow, or the next day, Kibum’s heart would find his. Hidden between the pages of a notebook, or stashed somewhere safe, it would be there; if only the both of them continued to search for it.

  


**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading <3 if you'd like you can follow me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/charmlesstrans) and [tumblr!](https://replaydebut.tumblr.com/) Please let me know in the comments what you thought of the fic^^


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